The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/715470
thelinguist.uberflip.com FEATURES Thebig idea Q How would you describe Girl Gone International? A We are a tribe, a community, a network, a support system and a culture which connects, represents and empowers the new digital generation of women living or travelling abroad. We are a non-profit organisation with hubs in over 100 cities – and growing fast. We create thousands of events every year all over the world. We have an active member base and produce a free digital magazine (GirlGI), with a readership of 120,000+. Q Why was it important to have a community exclusively for women? A GGI started as a way for me to make friends back in 2010. I had just moved from Vienna to Hamburg. It was my 10th city move in 10 years, so I knew the practical and emotional challenges that lay ahead to settle and integrate. The key is to have friends and support. I knew there must be other women out there living big, brave border-hopping lives, but how to find them? Some cities have expat groups but most of us don't identify with being an expat. There are travel groups but a lot of us don't identify as travellers. There are student groups but only some of us are students. So I was driven to create a way to bring globally minded women together. Q What's changed since you launched? A We started to expand slowly in 2012 with Amsterdam and Madrid. We never seek to open new hubs but when the right person approaches us, we make it happen. Often a member will move country and ask to take GGI with her. In 2013, we launched the magazine. We had no experience of online publishing but readership of the first issue hit over 100,000 on a marketing budget of zero. Meghan Klein (who co-created GirlGI) and I quickly learnt as much as possible about digital publishing and design. We are always learning. IT and website development has been a long, painful and expensive experience, but we are nearly there. Q How is GGI managed and funded? A It is funded by me with the support of community managers. It has been a great challenge to keep our operating costs as close to zero as possible. We rely on word- of-mouth. Each hub has a community manager who reports to me and will often have her own team. There are around 200 organisers in total with no paid staff. My role is overseeing everything, and building and maintaining relationships. The magazine is run by me (currently in Palma de Mallorca), Meghan in Ohio and Tina Jones in Abu Dhabi. I run the Facebook group and the community managers chip in. We are looking for volunteers to manage our online platforms. Q GGI operates in cities around the world, from Reykjavik to Shanghai. Is English always the lingua franca? A I made a decision at the start to keep everything in English. Although 87% of GGI members speak a foreign language and 57% speak three or more languages, English is our common language. Q What had been your experiences with languages previously? A I studied Spanish at school, and International Business and Modern Languages at university. My mother spoke to us in Spanish for fun, so at a young age I had positive experiences with language learning. We used to Ann Scott discusses her travel network Girl Gone International in our series on entrepreneurial projects have Spanish students stay with us in summer. It installed a deep sense of curiosity in me, a love of meeting new people and excitement about the sheer depth and breadth of the world. Later, teaching English to bankers in Vienna was a crash course in cross-cultural communication, human behaviour and empathy, and reminded me how fascinating people from different cultures are. Languages and cultural awareness have been crucial to GGI. It grew because we are not motivated by profit but exist to facilitate interconnection. www.kleinscott.com